Shakespeare wrote quite a lot of plays. Unfortunately, many of these plays were rather long, too long to be read in between TV schedulings, or while a microwave meal is cooking, this prompts the question of whether his writing still has relevance in the 21st century.
Of course, guardian of high culture that I am, I believe it does. That’s why I’ve taken the time out of my busy pie-nuking, channel surfing schedule to summarise his work into handy, bitesize limerickish chunks; Guaranteed not to take more than a few seconds out of your empty little life, and most importantly, to teach you absolutely nothing at all about classical literature. Now that’s edutainment! (Except that it’s really kinda not). Enjoy:
Macbeth
There was a lord from Dunsinane,
Who thought to dispose of his thane,
He did the thing,
And was crowned king,
But when Burnham wood moved he was slain
Romeo and Juliet
There was a young Capulet,
By the name of Juliet,
She took a potion,
And Romeo’s notion,
Brought both of them to their deaths
The Merchant of Venice
There was an old Jew called Shylock,
Who liked having money a lot,
He called a bad debt,
Wanting his pound of flesh,
But his legal action backfired leaving him destitute.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
On the night of Midsummer Night dreams,
The elf king fell out with his queen,
She was drugged and alas,
Groped a rude playa’s ass,
Oberon was pleased with the scheme.
Twelfth Night
A cross-dressing shipwrecked belle,
Falls under a handsome man’s spell,
Her lesbian lover,
Is married to her brother,
And a jew gets tormented as well
Antony and Cleopatra
Antony the triumvirate,
Likes to get into a drunken state,
His power collapses,
His lover is captured,
And she tops herself with a snake
The Tempest
The goodly old Duke of Milan,
Is marooned by a dastardly plan,
He shipwrecks the plotters,
And sees to the rotters,
And his daughter gets with a man
Timon of Athens
A generous man of rich tastes
Finds his good nature betrayed
He becomes misanthropic
And a tad psychotic,
As all his love turns into hate
Measure for Measure
A duke had his brother exiled,
But kindly adopted his child,
The kid and her cousin,
Went in search of good loving,
In Will’s cross-dressing signature style